


Epoxy to the World

by buckysbears (DrZebra)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All Platonic - Freeform, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Whump, shiro is my fave and i have no excuse to be this mean to him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrZebra/pseuds/buckysbears
Summary: Shiro, Pidge, and Keith are forced into a Galra gladiator arena. The two younger paladins see a side of Shiro that he desperately wishes they hadn’t.





	Epoxy to the World

**Author's Note:**

> my first voltron fic! i'm only rewatching for a second time now so i'm still getting hold of the characterization, but i had to get this out of my system. if yall would let me know if theyre written okay, that would be a big help! 
> 
> also pidge is def nonbinary, im using she/her since that's what they use on the show 
> 
> cw for blood but the violence isn't really shown

(He doesn’t think his heart could be beating any faster. He remembers the crowd was always loud, but now it’s a deafening roar, rising to a fever pitch as he blinks against the harsh lights of the arena. His hands are shaking. His breath rattles in his chest. He can’t believe he’s back here again. He can’t believe this is happening. 

At least the others are safe. 

The door on the other side of the arena starts to slide open. Shiro can’t hear it over the crowd, but he can feel the vibration of it where his flesh meets metal. He can feel his arm throbbing, despite the lack of living nerves. He can’t do this again. 

He braces himself as his foe is revealed, arms coming to a defensive position in front of his face. But when the door drops back down, the harsh backlight fading, Shiro’s heart drops with it. 

It’s Pidge. 

He breathes the name, then shouts it, but the sound is lost over the stretch of dirt. Pidge trembles in her purple prisoner shirt, hands bound behind her, eyes wrapped over with cloth.

Shiro knows she isn’t his challenger. She’s incentive. 

His feet pound across the arena as fast as they’ll take him, and he’s over to her in a matter of seconds, sliding on his knees the last few feet in desperation to be near. She flinches back, but sets her face in a snarl. 

“Don’t come any closer!” she shouts, half fear and half rage. “I’m warning you!” 

“Pidge,” he grates out, but he can’t make his voice work right and she obviously can’t hear him. He doesn’t want to scare her any more than she already is, so he tries to get the cloth off of her eyes as fast as he can. She lets out a little shout and staggers back, but freezes when she sees that it’s him. 

“Shiro?” she breathes. “Shiro!”

He’s not braced for the impact, so he almost falls flat on his back when she launches herself at him. She can’t hug him back with her arms bound, but he wraps her up anyway and presses her against him with one hand on the back of her head. Two tears leak out onto his neck. 

“I’m here, kiddo,” he says, squeezing her tighter. “I’ve got you.” 

The door at the other end of the arena, the one Shiro had come through, rumbles open. Now that Pidge is here, Shiro feels better and much, much worse all at once. The thought of Pidge in a place like this has his guts rolling dangerously, but it’s also filled him with a steely determination to protect her at all costs. He didn’t know how he was going to get through this before, but he knows he has to for her sake. 

He quickly works on undoing the knot on her bound hands as the door opens fully. He can’t see the combatant with the light shining in behind them, but he can tell they’re big. 

The binding falls to the ground, and Shiro stands. He places a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. 

“Pidge?” 

She looks up at him. 

“Stay behind me.” 

He slashes his arm through the air, and it glows to life. The enemy combatant bellows and stomps into the arena. Somehow, Shiro knows that’s going to be the high point of his day.) 

Shiro falls to his knees as he’s pushed into the cell, partly from the shove, partly from exhaustion. His body aches, and it’s all he can do to keep upright. The Galra grumbles, “I’ll be back,” and then the door slams behind him. 

Shiro doesn’t know if his muscles shiver and jump because of the cold bite of the cell, or because he’s pushed them past the point of functioning. He stays kneeled in front of the back wall for a moment, just trying to breathe, before he finally twists and collapses against it. The cold metal almost feels good on the scratches over his shoulder blades, but it makes his teeth chatter painfully. He manages to open his eyes. 

He wishes he hadn’t. 

Shiro’s eyes widen as he’s met with the horrified gazes of Pidge and Keith, both of them huddled in the opposite corner of the cell.

“I ...” Shiro’s words die in his throat, voice raspy. 

He doesn’t miss the way Keith curls protectively in front of Pidge. 

“Shiro,” Pidge whispers, and his heart clenches at the way her voice breaks on the word. “What _was_ that?” 

(He doesn’t notice the blood on his face until it drips into his eyes and obscures his vision. His chest heaves as he stands, desperately pulling air into his lungs as his legs struggle to stay propped beneath him. He can’t really feel them. He can’t feel anything except a pulsing in his head. A chaotic energy in his chest. The third of the combatants lies at his feet. The door rumbles open again. He can’t do this. He is doing this. Again, again, again.) 

Shiro looks away and scrubs at his face with one of his hands. But the blood on both has already started to dry, and he thinks he only succeeds in smearing a red handprint over his eye and forehead. His skin feels tight and tacky, and he flexes his hands and feels the stickiness over his palms. 

“I’m sorry,” he manages. 

Keith growls, and then shouts, “That’s not good enough!” 

Shiro closes his eyes. 

“We’ve all seen you fight before,” Pidge continues, still quiet. “But that was ... that was ruthless.” 

Shiro has to swallow three times before he can say, “I did what I had to do to protect you.” 

“Protect us?” 

Shiro doesn’t want to see the look on Keith’s face. He knows what’s coming.

“You almost killed me!” 

(Combatant four falls with a thump and Shiro staggers, but he doesn’t get a moment to breathe before the door comes open again. Shiro doesn’t give his next enemy even a second. He’s blinded by his rage, his terror, his desperation for this to be over. He has his hands around the next combatant’s throat and is crushing them into the dirt, his brain vaguely registering a familiar shout, but not enough to stop until two small arms are wrapping around his torso and desperately trying to yank him away. In his panicked state, he almost shoves them away, but he has just enough of himself still left on the surface to dimly recognize the arms as belonging to Pidge, as well as the voice shouting in his ear for him to stop. 

He lets go. He blinks. 

Keith rolls over in the dirt, coughing and gasping. 

Shiro’s hands shake. 

The other door starts to slide open.) 

Shiro flinches back against the wall. His eyes are still closed, but that’s not enough to stop the tears that leak down his face. 

“I’m sorry.” His voice creaks. “I thought you were ...”

“What?” Keith bites out. “A Galra?” 

“An enemy,” Shiro says. 

“Well, I wasn’t.” 

The choked quality of Keith’s voice makes Shiro open his eyes. Keith is trembling, but his face is set in defiance. His neck has already started to bruise. 

Shiro bites his tongue, holding in a sob. He rubs at the tear tracks on his face with the back of his wrist. 

“I let my fear blind me,” he admits, voice wet and on the verge of breaking. “I won’t let it happen again.” 

“I don’t know if we should give you the chance,” Keith hisses, and Shiro feels it like a punch to the gut. Pidge grabs onto Keith’s arm. “One time was enough.” 

“I—”

“You didn’t even let us help!”

“I couldn’t risk you getting hurt.” He doesn’t mean to bark it out, but even the thought of one of them going against an arena combatant, utterly defenseless, makes him angry and terrified out of his mind.

“We’re _paladins_!” Keith barks back. “It’s not your job to—”

The door clangs open, and all three of them jump. The Galra from before ambles into the room, holding a shocker baton and a hose. 

“Alright,” he says, sounding almost bored. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Shirt off.” 

Shiro is still. The Galra waits, then scowls. 

“I’ll give you one more chance, champion,” the Galra growls. He flicks the baton to its full length, and it crackles menacingly. 

Shiro glances at the two younger paladins, and clenches his fists. 

“Alright,” the Galra says. 

The electricity jumps to Shiro’s torso before the baton even makes contact, but as it’s pressed into his ribs a shout rips from Shiro’s throat as his sore muscles spasm painfully. He slumps to the ground as the baton is taken away, and slowly pushes himself back up with shaking arms. His metal arm burns where it makes contact. 

“I’ll give you to the count of three.” 

Shiro rips the purple prisoner shirt off his back before the Galra can even say “one”. 

Pidge and Keith’s gasps don’t come as a shock to him, but they still stab in his gut all the same. 

“That’s more like it,” the Galra says, and then aims the hose. Shiro splutters as the icy cold water gets in his mouth, pounding into his chest and making him cough and gasp. When the Galra is satisfied with his cleanliness, he shuts off the hose and slams the door shut behind him. 

There’s a few moments of silence as Shiro breathes, and then mops some of the water off of his dripping face. The room is violently cold now, but he’s too tired to shiver. He doesn’t look at the two younger paladins. He doesn’t want to see their faces. 

Keith is the one that eventually breaks the silence, choking out Shiro’s name. but it’s Pidge who stands on shaky legs and walks over to their leader. 

She drops beside him, and Shiro doesn’t meet her eyes. 

Some of the wounds are fresh, but most of them aren’t. The scars have long healed, but not enough to have faded. There are various nicks adorning his torso, but he knows that’s not what’s upset the other two so much. It’s the bite marks that pucker along his collarbone and shoulder. The deep claw marks that run from his chest to his ribs. The spattering of indents from a studded whip that curl around his stomach. The wrinkled burn that starts on his side and disappears under the waist of his pants. 

The scar on his face itches. It always does when he blushes. And now his face is crimson red, his eyes screwed shut tight. 

“Shiro?” Pidge asks. He can feel the heat of her hand over his shoulder, then it retreats. 

Shiro takes one deep breath, then another, trying to even his voice. “You two were never supposed to see me like that.” 

“Is this all from ... from before? In the arena?” Pidge breathes, and Shiro nods in response. 

Pidge’s hand finally makes contact, gently tracing the edges of a bite mark with one finger. Shiro opens his eyes. 

“I need you two to know ...” He swallows. “I need you to know that I never meant to hurt you. Everything I did in there was to protect you. And I lost myself a little along the way, but I didn’t ... I never ...” He grinds his shaking jaw, trying to find the words. But Pidge doesn’t let him continue. She flings her arms around his neck with a sob, burying herself against his side. Shiro almost laughs with the relief of it, pulling her against him. 

Keith quickly makes his way over as well, plastering himself to Shiro’s other side and wrapping an arm around his torso, careful of the fresh bruising around his ribs. Shiro can’t help the tears that eke down his face, and he uses what’s left of his strength to pull the two younger paladins closer. 

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Keith chokes out. 

“It’s okay,” Shiro replies almost before he can finish. 

“I’m sorry I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay,” Shiro says again. 

They sit in the almost silence, the cell quiet besides Pidge’s choked, muffled sobs, and the two men’s sniffling and shaky breathing. Shiro lets his head fall against the cold wall, the two paladins warm on either side of him. He wets his lips. He’s so tired. 

“I need you to know that I would do anything to protect you. Any of you. I would go in that arena a hundred times over if it meant you’d all be okay at the end of it.” 

Pidge is shaking her head, but he continues. 

“It would be worth it. Anything to keep you safe. And anything I did in there, I could live with. If it meant you were okay I’d live with it a hundred times over. I’d do anything to make sure you were okay, even if I didn’t like who I was at the end of it.” 

“You shouldn’t have to,” Pidge says. 

“But I would. I would do _anything_ ... I’m just sorry I let that be the thing that hurt you in the end.” 

Keith presses closer, throat bobbing against Shiro’s shoulder. “We’re okay. We’re okay.” 

Shiro nods, squeezing them against his sides, bracing himself. “But you’re not safe. Not yet. But I’m going to fix that.” 

Pidge pulls back so she can look at him, eyes watery. “What are you going to do?” 

He gives her a strained smile. “Whatever it takes.” 

**Author's Note:**

> looking for some non-shippy voltron blogs to follow so please give me some suggestions at buckysbears on tumblr!


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